Richard, your B&O is just gorgeous!! So nice to see that and hard to think of a better looking player than that!!
I have only owned 3 CD players in the main system. The first was a fairly budget Marantz in the early 90’s which had a dodgy drawer mech and died quite quickly. Its replacement around 1994 was an Aiwa XC700 which was cheap and decent which I think is still working but I am not sure if it’s in the loft or if I gave it away or sold it.
It was replaced with a Naim CDi which dates from 1994/5 I think and which I purchased secondhand in 1999. Its a lovely machine and has been in use continuously ever since. Always loved the top loading design of these!
These days the only Naim CD player I have is my CD3. It’s a great fun player, and while it wouldn’t be my first choice for classical music, for anything upbeat it’s an absolute riot. However, I do have a bit of a hankering for an original CDS or perhaps a CDI. In fact I think I could live very happily with a CDI. Do you know which mech yours has?
I am pretty certain it’s the original CDM4/22 mech rather than the later CDM4/27 or CDM9 because it was an early CDi and is still on the original mech. It’s actually up at the factory because a year or so ago it developed a strange hiss/crackle in the background of one of the channels. I put it aside and hadn’t used it for a year as I was waiting for the factory to have space to take it in and have my NDX to use anyway. I got it out a couple of weeks ago as the factory were asking what was wrong with it and which channel only to find that the strange crackle/hiss has disappeared!! I’ve sent it in anyway to be checked but it looks like the CDi is a bit like the Liberator spacecraft from Blakes 7 and has ‘Auto repair’ circuits!!!
B&O stuff has had some stick over the years, even before CD came along I recall people saying that it was just Philips electronics in a pretty frock, but I like the way they really care about how it looks.
After a minor spate of pessimistic posts in various other threads implying or (in more extreme cases) overconfidently guaranteeing the imminent failure of any given CD player, and the definitive impossibility of repair, I am greatly heartened to see so many examples of CD players going so strong after so long. Since most of us don’t put any but the most trivial effort into maintenance, I would like to propose a toast to CD players.
I don’t know exactly the time of my CDX, because I bought it second hand. I bought a replacement laser just in case it started to fail, but today it still works perfectly.
I’ve got two CD players - a Cyrus CD6s which I bought second hand. Must be around 15 years old at least. I had the laser replaced around 2 years ago. Certainly not the best CD player in the world, but one I’ve found enjoyable to listen to and very musical. I’ve recently replaced it in my main system with an Audiolab 7000CDT transport which is currently 1 day old and counting…
